Mark L. Stout Consulting is an all-purpose transportation consulting firm, specializing in finance, program management, and legislative and DOT policy. Our company has served public agencies and non-profits, big and small, all across the nation. Mark is widely-recognized as an expert whose years of experience can help organizations to break through gridlock and deliver transformative projects and innovative community enhancements.

Mark L. Stout Consulting

Thursday, August 29, 2013

“Moving Off the Road”

U. S. PIRG has followed up on their report earlier this year
on the end of the “Driving Boom” with a significant new piece, “Moving Off the
Road,” which goes straight at the key question: is the national falloff in VMT
just a result of the lousy economy?

The short answer is: No, it doesn’t appear to be.(My comments and intro to the earlier
report, “A New Direction: Our Changing Relationship with Driving and the
Implications for America’s Future,” here, the new report here.)

The study sifts through state-by-state data on unemployment
and other economic metrics and compares them with VMT data and basically finds
no correlation.(By the way, there
isn’t much correlation with other economic and demographic factors either,
leaving the differences in state VMT changes still somewhat mysterious.)

The basic facts are that per capita VMT is down – and down
significantly – almost everywhere, except in a few outliers like North Dakota,
which is experiencing an oil boom.And that VMT drop has now been observed for some time.In fact, per capita VMT has been going
down for eight street years.

“Moving Off the Road” notes several other reasons for
doubting that the decline in driving is just a result of the current economic
slump: (1) Per capita driving had already begun to decline before the recession
and has continued going down during the recovery, (2) other metrics of
“motorization,” such as vehicles per household, have shown the same peak-and-decline
pattern, (3) driving has declined among both the employed and the unemployed,
and (4) the ups and downs of gross domestic product no longer track with the
ups and downs of VMT.

In short, the case is beginning to look more and more
compelling that driving patterns have made a dramatic and long-lasting shift
over the past several years.

And of course this isn’t just an academic question.As “Moving Off the Road” concludes, “Accepting
that the Driving Boom has ended presents an enormous opportunity.Our transportation system remains
oriented to the goals of the 1950s, focused on creating new highways and
expanded mobility for a new era of expanding automobile ownership.To the extent that driving rates no
longer climb, it makes it easier for America to shift priorities.”